The dry face of the Atacama Desert

Photo: The Pampa Austral and the Indio Muerto Pampa mark another style of desert landscape. Great plains, the absolute absence of vegetation - and a railway line produces an absolutely unique straight line.
(Panasonic1203; W. Griem 2008).
The contrast between desert and the first steps in the industrialization of the sector is notorious. The railway line dates back to the 1916s - a booming saltpeter industry in northern Chile. The line connected La Calera (near Santiago) to Iquique; a masterpiece of planning - unfortunately it never kept its promise. Technically it does not show the advantages of the same works in other countries, able the low budget, able the lack of projection to the future arrived at a long journey, not very fast and finally the competition of the road with buses and trucks did not leave air to breathe. At the end of the seventies the passenger traffic ended and a little later, in the nineties in many sections the traffic of freight trains also ended.

Description:
Location: Pedro Montt railway station, on the road Diego de Almagro to Altamira.
Nearest town: Diego de Almagro (50 km)
Petrol: Diego de Almagro (21 km) and Agua Verde (118 km)
Road condition: Salted, partly in poor condition - better SUV, 4X4, Jeep, Pickup
Worth seeing: viewpoint, landscape, old railway stations, saltpetre.
UTM: E402.000 / N70.99.804 - Height: 1066 m.

Viewpoints of the same area:
Pampa Austral and Pampa Indio Muerto with railway station
From Altamira to Doña Inés volcano
The Pan American highway in the desert (Qda. Carrizalillo)
Qda. Carrizalillo - J. Pérez railway station near Altamira

Information Photo: Panasonic Camera DMC-FZ18
Focal length: 63,3mm (386/35mm) | Time: 1:500 | ISO100
F: f/8 | Original size (px): 3264 x 2448 | Date: 2008/03/08/13:33hrs.